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199 Comments
- JeffH, on 10/04/2008, -2/+93Sounds awesome. That plays right into the rumor that they are dropping the prices, as until now it seems like to be able to acheive that they were either going to be cutting profit per unit (bad for the stock prices), or were cutting features (bad for the consumer). Seems like a good middle ground!
Though the continued mentioning of new MacBooks and the continued ignoring of what's going to happen to the Pro line is worrying. If there's no new MBP's on the 14th to go with the MB's, i'll be one of those angry fanboys raging the internet for days in the wake. - BrendanSheehan, on 10/05/2008, -5/+799-5 Mac is run by someone high up at Apple, call it a hunch, but I've had this feeling for a while.
http://tinyurl.com/3fvbl8 - Scr4tchFury, on 10/05/2008, -1/+63So if I eat a lot of straw, I can, by definition, ***** a brick?
- Nouman6, on 10/05/2008, -2/+55Aluminum ear buds.
I mean plastic is so 2007. - soulpiercer7, on 10/05/2008, -5/+54something being made in the United States? buried as inaccurate...
- inactive, on 10/05/2008, -3/+52darn. i was hoping bricks mean that the laptops would now have lego like spokes on top so we could stack and build stuff. maybe next time apple... maybe next time.
- d0nkeym0nkey, on 10/05/2008, -2/+50The call is coming from inside the house!!!1!
- Spamcan, on 10/05/2008, -3/+41This is good news, sounds like Apple is finally as fed up with the defects in their products as their customers. A few jobs coming back from overseas would be awesome news too with the economy going to ultimate *****.
- sweintraub, on 10/05/2008, -2/+34http://blogs.computerworld.com/apple_brick_is_a_ma ...
Apple building plants in the good ol USofA? - mllawso, on 10/05/2008, -20/+48Buried as inaccurate: bricks are made of straw and dung.
Apple products contain no straw - inactive, on 10/05/2008, -4/+30This is why they hired the Segway guy...and bought PA Semi...
- Urkel, on 10/05/2008, -2/+25Neat process. But I'm curious to see how this affects repairs and upgrades.
With the Macbook then Apple made it very easy to swap out memory and HDD, so hopefully they have a similar way to do it with the new Macbook Pros. - Bjango, on 10/05/2008, -0/+21Yes.
- seeinpixels, on 10/05/2008, -1/+20…404'd.
Here's the working URL: http://www.9to5mac.com/macbook-brick - charlietuna, on 10/05/2008, -4/+20Steve does things that seem impossible. Not because they are impossible, but because nobody else succeeds (or tries). Why can't GE make an iPhone, or Westinghouse a Nano? I can only guess there is a general lack of vision, courage and ambition in most firms.
- Dujenwook, on 10/05/2008, -0/+14The brick is your webserver, apparently.
- jmreid, on 10/05/2008, -0/+14I doubt Apple would use the wrong zip code.
- inactive, on 10/05/2008, -7/+21So this would only be cool if a different computer manufacture did it?
- 0011002, on 10/05/2008, -1/+15Not even a mac owner and I find this pretty cool. I mean Apple is doing what more companies should do taking jobs from overseas and bringing them back home. Apple is too expensive for my taste and I like to build my own systems but this may actually sway me for a notebook since all the notebooks i ever have used cases break after a year of use.
- 0011002, on 10/05/2008, -4/+17well think of it. Lower prices and a one piece laptop case that is much harder to break. As I said before I don't even own a Mac but this is an idea i can see me getting behind.
- CCUboogernjit, on 10/05/2008, -0/+12so what will $799 do for ya?
- inactive, on 10/05/2008, -1/+13What a time to do it. Designed and built in the USA. If they can lower the costs, even by a couple hundred, they can make up the profits in quantity. That being the sky doesn't fall in the near future.
- johnw188, on 10/05/2008, -0/+12I get the feeling that the article was using MacBook as a generic term for all mac laptops, not just the low end models
- Iwantawii, on 10/05/2008, -2/+14The brick is a lie.
- Bauer22, on 10/05/2008, -5/+16The big deal is that it would make stronger, cheaper, lighter, and more streamlined aluminum cases for Apple products.
- steger, on 10/05/2008, -0/+11I would love to see a special about the factory once it goes public/live.
- CCUboogernjit, on 10/05/2008, -0/+11Well it will provide a kick in the ass to all the other companies. Then apple will come out with something even bigger and the cycle will repeat. Eventually I will scrounge up enough cash to get a macbook till then i will stick with my 4 year old homebuilt pc. SOYO Motherboard & Athlon XP 2800+ FTW!!!
- ross., on 10/05/2008, -0/+11Because GE/Westinghouse are run by hundreds of people. With Apple, it's all about Steve.
- inactive, on 10/05/2008, -6/+16did you read the article? they are speculating that a whole new process to manufacture the notebook line. something revolutionary on the line of the Ford's assembly line. the new process would be able to drive down costs dramatically and allow easier new prototypes.
- richmonkey3, on 10/05/2008, -2/+11an American company that will bring its manufacturing back to the US, running on clean renewable energy, all the while reducing the cost and defects. that sounds like innovation that is even more commendable than the iPhone. here's hoping that this is true, and if not - it should be.
- srg13, on 10/05/2008, -0/+9I really doubt that they are going to cut it from solid aluminium - that process is only really used for making prototypes (and one-offs or very short production runs), and is very expensive and time consuming...
- thedragon4453, on 10/05/2008, -0/+9I don't know how different the design will be, but I suspect that new MBP's are in the works. It wouldn't make sense to me to have a Macbook at $1000, and a MBP at $2000 when the only difference would be the video and screen size options.
- russ3, on 10/05/2008, -1/+10I used to manufacture auto parts from aluminum in a pretty similar process, ok all i really did was watch polish ladies load the machine and take them out, and fix the machines whenever they broke, but its a very cool process to watch.
- EdibleBadger, on 10/05/2008, -0/+9hmmm...that has just given me a great idea for a party trick...
- CrushThemTorg, on 10/05/2008, -0/+8Media Access Control? That's included free with any network device. This thread is about Macs, though.
- Muler36, on 10/05/2008, -0/+8expert01: what a crock of ***** you just wrote mate, you just made up how much the plant costs, how much it costs to make the case at the moment..argh i cant be bothered to list all the other made-up amounts you just made, but your post is completely irrelevent.
at least have ONE stable peice of infomation - nebkiwi, on 10/05/2008, -0/+8so I hear your like mudbricks.
- freudianslipper, on 10/05/2008, -4/+12You can be better than this type of comment. You don't have to insult just because somebody likes a computer manufacturer that you don't. I've had major problems with microsoft as well as apple.
I just get tired of this same old, lame attack. - d0nkeym0nkey, on 10/05/2008, -1/+9True that. Quality control went south with the introduction of intel macs. I would kill for a laptop that matches the ruggedness of my clamshell ibook g3!
- PPCG4, on 10/05/2008, -2/+10rtfa.
- charlietuna, on 10/05/2008, -1/+9They don't make them because they don't make them. Excellent point!
- woojoo, on 10/05/2008, -3/+10This is way too cool. Apple had been kicking out all-yoo-mini-um for all of their product lines except for the Macbook and Mac Mini. A US factory is perfect just in a economic situation like this.
- tidu, on 10/05/2008, -0/+7*****
yeah, I said it. - MtheoryX, on 10/05/2008, -0/+7You find upgrading MBP's difficult?
Perhaps they should not be coming to you for upgrades.
Also, PC laptops have exactly the same difficulty level with regards to upgrades...some even more. - johnw188, on 10/05/2008, -1/+8Nope. In manufacturing, machining has a very specific definition:
"Conventional Machining, one of the most important material removal methods, is a collection of material-working processes in which power-driven machine tools, such as lathes, milling machines, and drill presses are used with a sharp cutting tool to mechanically cut the material to achieve the desired geometry." - colincornaby, on 10/05/2008, -7/+13Yes, it can actually.
(Bury) - jakem1, on 10/05/2008, -3/+9"Could have" not "could of".
- newbill123, on 10/05/2008, -0/+6The increased jobs and lowering distribution costs are only small benefits of a manufacturing operation because you're always looking to minimize these costs.
For a company that likes keeping secrets and making proprietary things, not having to turn over your proprietary designs to other, possibly hostile, companies is a huge benefit.
A company's manufacturing process shows how easily it can adapt to changes. Apple's product doesn't depend on someone else's software or licenses. It's also worked hard to be independent of a single chip design. They are at the mercy of certain part makers (like memory), but other makers are constrained at a much higher level.
An Apple plant means they could rebuild the "candy bar" from the raw ingredients or change the product design from it's innermost nut if supply realities change. Right now they have to give out the complete ingredients and process to a third party. The third party could easily make their own knock-off product bar with a different wrapper and become a real threat. Making one's own plant means less self-made competition.
But if you build your own plant, the plant's design limits what you can produce. The more you have to change the plant, the less you can respond to changes in technology. True enough. That's what killed the auto plants. But a computer built from raw materials is a very different product. The desktop model has picked up a big sales boom after been featured in Iron Man 2? Let's take some of the raw materials we had for the laptop models and make a consumer desktop with an Iron Man 2 logo on it for a couple of weeks. They may have four different production lines, but if they all use similar supplies, you can easily overhaul your product line very quickly.
Speed and flexibility of production, as well as being able to keep their proprietary secrets to themselves are probably Apple's biggest motivations. - fwertz, on 10/05/2008, -0/+6Linksys has already harvested this technology.
And man is it fun. - poet, on 10/05/2008, -1/+7I think you may have found something.
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